Settlement offer - accept or reject?

Valli

Following an accident in which I was not at fault I have been offered a settlement as the car has been written off.

Can I reject?

Should I reject?

Ayr_Rage

Entirely your choice.

How does the offer compare to the prices of similar second hand vehicles?

If you reject you'll have to have solid evidence of the offer being too low.

Arunmor

Is buying the car back and repairing an option? (Not as easy these days with price of parts new or used)

MyRealNameToo

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6665883/settlement-offer-accept-or-reject

Are you claiming off your own insurance? The third party insurance? Using an accident management company?

With the first you can, it's treated as a complaint. If you arent happy with their response you can go to the Ombudsman

With the second you can but it won't be considered a complaint and you have no right to go to the ombudsman. It's likely they will pay you the value anyway as an interim payment as then starts the countdown clock of how much longer you get to claim for a hire car or loss of use.

The final bit is more complex as the AXM will get an engineers report (with a nice kickback on the fee) and present it to the third party insurer who may or may not agree with it. If they think the car is worth less they will offer less, if they think the car is worth more then they will offer what your engineer said. Generally the independent engineer won't reconsider their valuation, you're asking them to do unpaid work effectively. In principle the insurer could, though you start looking a bit silly if you are arguing against your own expert, but as you are in credit hire then they will want to get a payment to you ASAP to get you out of hire. Again no rights to the ombudsman over the valuation.

Mildly_Miffed

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6665883/settlement-offer-accept-or-reject

Can you tell them not to write the car off, and insist on it being repaired? No…

You might be able to buy it back off the insurer for a proportion (~15%) of the payout, then repair it yourself.

You can definitely question the valuation. What did your proposal give the value at?

HHarry

My daughter has managed to write off 2 cars in the past year, and the payouts in both were pretty fair and about what I expected.

She did challenge the second because the car had just had the cam belt and clutch done, but it’s just expected maintenance and didn’t lead to a better payout.